Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

This is helpful Janus.

There was a time where my hands were tied and just really couldn't rectify anything. I thought after a couple of years of pulling my credit score that things would improve but nada. I just left it. And I am wondering if that might be true now (waiting for the charge offs to come off). It's certainly not what I had planned.

I will look into Merrick. Not sure what they are all about but I get there are positive and negative connotations attached to it. Also it seems there are secured credit cards.

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

Hmmm. Ok.

It's good to know that bucketing may not serve me. I still would like to understand it.

What I get from this is just to get an installment loan and secured credit card. And I guess after a couple of years charge offs will come off unless I pay the debts. There doesn't seem to be a magic bullet other than that...

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

My suggestions:

Join a credit union that offers SSLs (Share Secured Loan) like Alliant Credit Union. A share secured loan is taking out a loan that is secured by money that is in your savings account. (The money is locked in your savings account and is slowly released as the loan is paid off.) You are literally borrowing money from yourself. These loans are pretty much guaranteed approvals and offer very low interest rates. Take out a $500 loan for the longest period that they offer, 4 to 5 years if possible.

Get your own secured credit card. I would suggest a lender like Open Sky. Open Sky doesn't charge excessive fees and doesn't try to rip you off as much as some of the other secured credit card companies. Keep in mind that they do charge a fee to increase your secured credit line in the future if you ever intend to do so.

You need to establish credit in your name and start getting good marks on your reports every month to offset all your baddies. If nothing else, as soon as all your baddies drop off, your scores will rocket because of the good credit behavior that you have established. Once the baddies are gone you will have what it takes to start getting better credit cards.

Good luck!

EDIT: It won't make a difference to your scores if you pay the charge offs or not. The damage is already done. Let sleeping dogs lie IMHO.

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

Can I ask you what type of credit card you opened? It's ok if you don't want to say...

Happy to. First, I'll say I was denied by two majors. I tried Chase, and then Discover. Denied on both. This was because I was getting offers from them.

I was also getting offers from another major - Capital One. The offers kept coming and I was under the impression that Cap One is somewhat more lenient, so I applied, but was still expecting to get another denial. Instead I was approved! $2000 credit limit.

I should add now that I did have one credit card account that was open and had always been in good standing, a Bank of America card that I didn't run up (mostly because I had sock drawered it while I was running up 5 other cards with bigger credit limits). So I had been making timely payments on the BoA card and did have some small amount of positive CC history when I applied for the Cap One.

The Capital One card has been good to me. They promised to increase my credit limit after 6 months, and they did, to $2500. Then after one year of on-time payments, they raised it again (this October) to $3500 and upgraded it to a rewards card with 1.5% cash back.

All of this helped bring my total utilization down, giving me decent bumps. The BoA card always had a sizeable utilization, and it's only after I got that to near zero that my score really bumped up (along with eliminating the personal loan completely).

One final data point - The auto loan is with my wife, but I believe that's different from being an authorized user on a CC. I co-signed the loan, so it is "my" loan as much as it is hers. I think we only got the loan because her score is in the 700s. Also, in talking to the lender at the dealer (Toyota), he said my score (at that point around 620), was "pretty good", which surprised me. I take that to mean they see a lot of people with much lower scores. I will also add that my auto history is perfect, never late on a car payment. (And I don't know what my auto score was, I'm just talking Fico 8).

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

Join a credit union that offersSSLss (Share Secured Loan) likeAlliantt Credit Union. A share secured loan is taking out a loan that is secured by money that is in your savings account. (The money is locked in your savings account and is slowly released as the loan is paid off.) You are literally borrowing money from yourself. These loans are pretty much guaranteed approvals and offer very low interest rates. Take out a $500 loan for the longest period that they offer, 4 to 5 years if possible.

Get your own secured credit card. I would suggest a lender like Open Sky. Open Sky doesn't charge excessive fees and doesn't try to rip you off as much as some of the other secured credit card companies. Keep in mind that they do charge a fee to increase your secured credit line in the future if you ever intend to do so.

You need to establish credit in your name and start getting good marks on your reports every month to offset all your baddies. If nothing else, as soon as all your baddies drop off, your scores will rocket because of the good credit behavior that you have established. Once the baddies are gone you will have what it takes to start getting better credit cards.

Good luck!

EDIT: It won't make a difference to your scores if you pay the charge offs or not. The damage is already done. Let sleeping dogs lie IMHO.

This is all good advice. You need to start building positive credit. Get any secured card that is without fees (also try a local CU). A store card for now as well. Remember anything you open and pay in full now can be closed later as you get better cards. A share secured loan from a local CU or a Nationall like NFCU (are you eligiblee?).

You will not get anywhere without building new positive credit. Au's help but only when you also have your own card(s). And when all these derogs drop off, you want to have started and maintained a positive payment history.

Check my profile, I started at a 406 EQ Fico. I would still be in the low 500's without positive accounts. Good luck!

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

Usually, after a couple of years, the credit improves. This has not been the case and I have paid off some accounts in full.

As of today, my credit score are these:

Equifax 521, Transunion 522, Experian 543

Repossession (car) - 8/2015 Charge off

Credit card - Debt $900 10/2014 Charge off

Credit card - Debt $7000 10/2014 Charge off

Credit card - Debt $3000 10/2104 Charge off

Credit card - Debt $300 11/2014 Charge off (I actually paid this)

Credit card - Debt $2200 4/2013 Charge off

Collections for $7000 debt above (attorney)

Collections for $3000 debt above

Collections for $198.00 which I will pay.

So my question is "WHY" it hasn't improved one bit. That 520-540 score has been the same since 2015.

I have paid off three other debts that too did not improve the score. More than likely I will pay off the $900.00 debt. However, if these do not improve my score, frankly, there is no incentive to pay off the other debts, as 7 years will have passed by.

This is my confusion...

If these accounts are for the same debt and both show balances, dispute the CO's since only one should show a balance if it is a CA from a Junk Debt Buyer.

Please list who these are.

Get your annualcreditreports ASAP. Find out the date of First Delinquincy for each. Some of these may be going away very soon! Know where you stand.

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

I'll second this. As you can see from my replies, I was always building positive credit. Even though I still have the anchor of those CO/CA/Judgements (major baddies), I was still able to gain 91 points by creating new positives.

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

Join a credit union that offers SSLs (Share Secured Loan) like Alliant Credit Union. A share secured loan is taking out a loan that is secured by money that is in your savings account. (The money is locked in your savings account and is slowly released as the loan is paid off.) You are literally borrowing money from yourself. These loans are pretty much guaranteed approvals and offer very low interest rates. Take out a $500 loan for the longest period that they offer, 4 to 5 years if possible.

Get your own secured credit card. I would suggest a lender like Open Sky. Open Sky doesn't charge excessive fees and doesn't try to rip you off as much as some of the other secured credit card companies. Keep in mind that they do charge a fee to increase your secured credit line in the future if you ever intend to do so.

You need to establish credit in your name and start getting good marks on your reports every month to offset all your baddies. If nothing else, as soon as all your baddies drop off, your scores will rocket because of the good credit behavior that you have established. Once the baddies are gone you will have what it takes to start getting better credit cards.

Good luck!

EDIT: It won't make a difference to your scores if you pay the charge offs or not. The damage is already done. Let sleeping dogs lie IMHO.

This is AWESOME! This is what I thinking but I like the specifics. I am a member Pentagon Federal which I believe they offer these services. My question to you is...why the longer term of the loan? I mean, I guess it really doesn't matter as the money is on the account, but I am curious if there is another reason.

After close inspection of my report, the baddies start to come off in the next 3 months. Something also I noticed, and you may not know this, but on the date of the first delinquency the dates vary between the agencies but on some, there is no "starting" dates. I found this to be odd. It's only in 3-4 spots but it may be hard to prove it. Anyhow...

Re: 5 to 6 years...and no improvement on credit score!

This is great! Thanks.

It did answer a question or two. Those are top-tiered credit cards as opposed to some of the bottom, pay through the nose credit cards and I guess the second thing is still be denied even though they sent you "offers".

All FICO® Score products made available on myFICO.com include a FICO® Score 8, and may include additional FICO® Score versions. Your lender or insurer may use a different FICO® Score than the versions you receive from myFICO, or another type of credit score altogether. Learn more

FICO, myFICO, Score Watch, The score lenders use, and The Score That Matters are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation. Equifax Credit Report is a trademark of Equifax, Inc. and its affiliated companies. Many factors affect your FICO Scores and the interest rates you may receive. Fair Isaac is not a credit repair organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act. Fair Isaac does not provide "credit repair" services or advice or assistance regarding "rebuilding" or "improving" your credit record, credit history or credit rating. FTC's website on credit.

PRIVACY NOTICE: When you visit this website we collect your browsing activities on our site and use that information to analyze and research improvements to the website, and to our products and services. When you register for our products and services, we also collect certain personal information from you for identification purposes, such as your name, address, email address, telephone number, social security number, IP address, and date of birth. Further information is available in our FICO Data Privacy Policy. For visitors with visual disabilities, access to this website, including our FICO Data Privacy Policy, is available through assistive technologies, such as BrowseAloud, JAWS, VoiceOver, Narrator, ChromeVox, and Window-Eyes. More details on software and accessibility are available at WebAIM.org.